


For Everything There is A Word (For Everything But This)

by hivesix (supermatique)



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supermatique/pseuds/hivesix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU; post-season two, pre-season three.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the Regents release Helena from her prison for an undisclosed period of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Everything There is A Word (For Everything But This)

**Author's Note:**

> Way back when in 2011, I wrote 90% of this and it ended up banished to the bowels of my hard drive until now. Obviously the show and the relationship between Myka and H.G has come a ways since then, but I've essentially disregarded everything that happened in season three. Thanks to pirateygoodness for beta reading this back in the day; this would not have been half the story it is without her input.
> 
> Title from Ryan Adams's "Crossed Out Name".

I.

_Didn’t want to be your ghost_  
 _Didn’t want to be anyone’s ghost  
_ _But I don’t want anybody else, I don’t want anybody else..._

– The National, “Anyone’s Ghost”

 

She stared hard at the yellowed paper, gripping it tightly in her left hand.  Her fingers were clammy from clenching for so long, sticking in the gross way that could only be removed by a thorough wash, but she still kept at it.    
  
 _Concentrate._ She traced the words of the note, the delicate lettering written in a hurry.

KEEP IT.  YOU CAN OWE ME.

Houdini’s wallet sat innocently on the shelf before her and she turned her attention from the paper, watching the artifact as if she were appraising it.  Slowly, she raised her right hand and carefully brushed her fingers over the edge of the wallet, starting from one end and travelling the width of it before dropping her hand back to her side.  
  
 _Concentrate._ She closed her eyes and focused, trying to keep a clear image in her mind.  
  
She didn't know how the artifact was meant to work, exactly. Was she supposed to pick it up?  Put money in it?  A shuffling noise reached her ears and she opened her eyes.  The wallet had moved the smallest amount; had moved forward so that the edge of it hung precariously over the shelf, as if another second or two of concentration on her part would send it teetering over the edge.  
  
 _Concentrate_.  This time, she kept her eyes open as she called up the face in her mind again.  
  
Nothing.  Maybe it was faulty?  No, the artifacts never failed.  There was just no ghost to transfer. Her heart leapt at the prospect.  
  
“Myka!”  She started at the voice echoing through the warehouse, thoughts flying as wildly as her hair as she whirled around trying to pinpoint the sound. It was Pete, and he was definitely real; she could just make him out on the balcony of the office, searching for her through the spyglass.  Around her, there was nothing but air and artifacts.  “Where are you?  Hurry up, I wanna chow some mein.”  
  
The tears threatened to fall with the frustrated sigh she let out, and she could barely resist the urge to stamp her foot.  She nudged the wallet back into place, careful to keep her eyes on it as she backtracked toward the office.  She rounded the corner to Pete’s repeated call and crumpled the note into her pocket.  
  
-  
  
“Do you think H.G is alive?”  
  
Pete stared at her from across the table of the Chinese establishment – if it could be called that – they were eating at.  It was a bit of a hole, really; the lino on the floor was badly put down, the paint was peeling, and the chair stuffing burst out of torn seams like weeds cropping up in a garden of dark green vinyl seat covers.  The metal back of the chair was uncomfortable against her spine, and the grease and oil from the cooking lingered in the air, sticking to her hair and clothes.  But the food here was good, especially the chow mein and the sweet and sour pork, and it gave them a chance to get away from the B &B for a little while.  
  
“I don’t know, Mykes, I mean, the Regents didn’t tell us anything...”  
  
“Exactly!” Myka whispered, not really knowing why she felt as though she was being watched when she leaned forward to speak, as though she has a secret to keep. In a way, she thought, she kinda did, even if they were alone in the cafe, apart from staff who were chattering away in the noisy kitchen.  “They never told us anything.  They just put her in a car and drove off.  Where did they go?  What are they doing with her?”  
  
Pete looked uncomfortable.  “Myka, they didn’t tell us for a reason.  It’s probably better if we don’t know.  Like, it’s got to be pretty bad if they don’t use the bronze sector.  The whole ‘fate worse than death’ thing,  you know.”  
  
She frowned at him.  “Like we didn’t know about Artie and the Russians?  Like we didn’t know anything about the Warehouse until they... kidnapped us from D.C.?  We put our _lives_ on the line every day for this stupid storage facility and it’s better if we didn’t know?   _Bronzing_ is a fate worse than death, Pete.”  Myka plowed on and held aside the plate of fortune cookies.  “They’re conscious the whole time, and...” She trailed off, the thought of being conscious and immobile – was it like being buried alive? Was there pain in cryogenics? – too disturbing to voice.  
  
Myka released the fortune cookies.  Pete opened hers first, ate it, and scrunched his eyes shut as he waved the tiny piece of paper in her face. Rolling her eyes, she took the oily rectangle from him and squinted at the print.

IT IS BETTER TO BE THE HAMMER THAN THE ANVIL.

 -

Not everything, but many things, in the B&B reminded her of Helena.

The gym, where Helena taught her a few kenpo moves before wrestling her down onto the mat and kissing her.

(“The Secret Service needs new hand-to-hand combat strategies,” she remarked, and left for breakfast while Myka attempted to re-coordinate her lungs and her mouth.)

The breakfast table, which held a scar from one of Pete and Helena's arm-wrestling battles: Myka had just come downstairs and Helena had looked up to smile at her. Pete, who had only just been holding up his end of the fight, triumphantly made his move and Helena's ring had gouged the surface, leaving the mark in the soft wood.

(“You were distracting me,” Helena accused Myka later that day, cornering her near one of the neutraliser stations while they inventoried the beverage aisle. “And for that, I must be repaid.”

“Swap you the Antarctica aisle?” Myka offered, trying not to react to Helena's hand straying between her legs. “I know how much you hate the blubber parka.”

“I had something a little warmer in mind,” Helena said, and flexed her fingers once before grinning wickedly and calmly ticked Foster Brooks' ceramic mug off the list.)

The library was the worst.

(“Hold me,” Helena declared, draping herself over Myka's lap, showing no regard at all for _The Princess Bride_.

Myka laughed, mentally noting her page before putting the book aside, and wrapped her arms around Helena's stomach. It was warm in the library, and Helena wore a blue cotton blouse that let much of her body heat through. “How's this?”

“Acceptable. Now kiss me.” She twisted in Myka's grasp and raised her head, lips puckered in a demanding pout. Myka complied without argument, stroking a vague pattern over Helena's belly with her right thumb as she did so.

“Everything all right?” Myka asked gently when they parted.

“Simply aces,” Helena replied cheerily, patting Myka on the shoulder before turning back around. She wiggled her butt a little as she settled back, causing Myka's hips to jerk up instinctively. “What's this William Goldman chap all about, then?”)

It distracted her, pulled her mind from the present when she least expected it. When the retrieval of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's glasses went astray, knocking her unconscious for a minute while Pete very nearly turned into a human icicle, she knew it was time to leave. Deep into the night, before dawn and before _today_ flowed truly into _tomorrow_ , she left a letter on the table by the door of the B&B.

She felt like a coward, and Helena's note in her pocket burned against her thigh as she drove away from Univille.

 

II.

_Remember me, but ah! forget my fate._

\- Dido's Lament

 

Two weeks after Myka returned to Colorado Springs, Adwin Kosan paid her a visit at Bering & Sons. 

“We are agreeable to working something out with regards to HG Wells,” he said, laying a plain brown envelope on the counter between them, “If you return to the Warehouse.”

Myka frowned. “Work something out... how, exactly?”

“Come back to the Warehouse, Agent Bering,” Kosan said, and his smile is not unkind. He turned to take his leave.

“Mr. Kosan, wait,” Myka called after him. When Kosan turned back to face her, patiently waiting for Myka to fill in her own silence, she said, “I – I don't want to stay at Leena's.” It's not really what she had meant to say right then; her memories of Helena and the B&B were meant to be private, for no-one to know about, and was only one of the things that she couldn't bear to face again just yet. There were thoughts like _what if I still can't do my job_ and but it was all she could stutter out amongst the books.

“If that is what you wish.” Kosan inclined his head politely towards her, and was gone.

The envelope he left behind is thin and felt almost empty; inside was a one-way ticket to South Dakota. She wanted to bristle at their presumption, but found herself repacking the bag that she hadn't really unpacked, and flew out the next morning.

-

The Regents put her up in a small apartment block on the outskirts of Univille. It was cramped, large enough only for one person to inhabit comfortably, but it was Univille, after all; there was no need for anything larger most of the time, and Myka didn't want for much company as it was.

Her return to the Warehouse was fairly without incident, as much as possible when your job was to retrieve artifacts, anyway. Artie was snippy but forgiving, as always, and got his own back by sending her off to Michigan to investigate a ping involving monkeys.

Claudia welcomed her back with a squeal and a delighted hug, before remembering that she was meant to be mad. “I'm mad at you,” she said afterwards with a stern face, and promptly dissolved into glee.

And then was Pete; sweet, darling Pete, who was so different now. He was conspicuously absent when Myka first returned to the office, but when she stopped by the B&B to say hello to Leena (who hugged her without reservation and kissed her on the cheek with tears in her eyes), Pete was there, making his way out of the kitchen with a handful of cookies halfway to his mouth. He froze when he saw Myka, eyes wide, and then turned around and went up the staircase without a word.

“He'll come around,” Leena said, with a gentle touch to Myka's elbow. “If you wait long enough, he'll be back for more cookies, at least.”

*

Myka stood Pete's freeze-out for about three days before she cornered him in his room while he was packing for a retrieval with Claudia.

“Pete––”

“I gotta go.” He tossed a bag that was already too full and a handful of t-shirts onto his bed, waiting for her to get out of his way.

“I'm not leaving until you talk to me.”

“Well, now's not a good time, okay?” Shouldering his way past her, Pete shoved his clothes into the bag that was too small, now, to hold what he had haphazardly thrown in. With more strength than was necessary for a small metal zipper, he closed the bag, and the sleeve of one of his shirts caught in the teeth of the zip. He was a step closer to hurling the bag across the room completely when Myka stepped in front of him, holding her hand out, palm down as one would do to temper a wild animal. As Pete stared at her, silent, she slid the zipper back, tucked the shirt away, and closed the duffel with ease.

“Pete, please, will you just––just tell me what you want me to do to make it better––”

“You can't, okay? You just left, Myka! You left, and all you gave us was some _note_ and seriously, Mykes, you know I don't like to read.  Why didn't you just tell me?"

"How," she began, and trailed off.  How could she tell him about Helena and the note that she still looked at every night?  About how the B&B left her feeling like her body wasn't hers any more, the way it felt punched out and gasping for air, about how he had very nearly died because she couldn't focus on the job? 

Pete collapsed onto the bed and stared at his hands.  "You can tell me anything, Myka.  I know what she meant to you.  It just... sucks that you didn't feel like you could." 

"Pete, I'm so sorry.  I really am." 

Claudia's voice hollered indistinctly from downstairs and Pete stood up, picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.  "Look, I'm just glad you're back.  I mean, what's the point of having a Pete Cave when the house would be pretty much the same, you know?"

When Pete just squealed and jumped away laughing when she punched him in the shoulder, Myka knew they'd be okay.

- 

And now, here they were. Friday late afternoon, 4 P.M.; the flight landed half an hour ago. Then Helena would have rented a car, and meandered somewhere along the Badlands to get to Myka's. Hopefully with a GPS, Myka thought. God, this job. This place. You couldn't get to it with a tractor beam.

She parked on the street, too impatient to carefully steer up the narrow driveway; she saw, though, a slim silver convertible in her usual spot. There was no sign of Helena or her guard. The Regents must have been feeling generous – either that, or Helena was taking liberties, as usual. Myka smiled at the thought, imagined that the ruby on the end of her necklace grew warmer against her skin as her inner ear detected a difference in the air, sensed the presence of her friend – co-worker – lover. Fellow woman. She adjusted her clothes, fixed her hair, practised her smile in the rearview mirror.

What were they?

And what were they indeed, Myka thought as she burst through the door of her tiny studio apartment, the first thing in her line of sight a dark-haired woman half-grinning, half-smirking at her, dangling a bottle of red wine by its neck. Helena barely had time to drop her gift on Myka's kitchen counter before they were tangled in each other, arms wrapped around waists and knees knocking together before thighs slipped between legs, mouths meeting and separating in a succession of kisses. The tumble pitched them back against the wall, tucked them in the red brick shadow between two windows.

There, they kissed as though it were a forgotten art, Myka cradling Helena's left hip in her right hand, her thumb ghosting over the bone that jutted just above the waistband of Helena's jeans. She pulled Helena tighter against her, so quick and hard that Helena's knuckles skinned against the brick as she gripped Myka's waist to steady herself. They parted briefly, taking each other in only for a moment, watching faint blue jugulars pulse beneath flushed, delicate skin, before their lips crushed against each other once more. They moved together, frantically, desperately, like they were only just remembering how to – and in a sense, they were – and their breathing filled the air with harsh, staccatoed moans, and whimpers, and giggling.

“Hello,” Helena said when she pulled away, and she was so goddamn attractive and suave and sure of herself that Myka launched forward to kiss the smirk right off her face. She fisted and pulled on the collar of Helena's blue button-down so hard that they never found the button that popped off in that moment.

“I hate your stupid accent,” Myka breathed, staring at where she'd bitten down on Helena's lower lip so that it paled then filled with blood, and almost looked a stain against her white teeth.

Helena's smile grew wider. “Do you, now?” she asked, perhaps putting her accent on a little stronger, perhaps not. Myka smacked her shoulder with the back of her hand all the same. Helena caught Myka's wrists in her hands, leaned closer so that their bodies touched. “I've missed you,” she murmured, rubbing her nose against Myka's. Her index finger extended and brushed the skin just above the lace of Myka's bra, and a shiver streaked down Myka's body. “I've missed having you, everything about you. I'd have taken you by the stove.”

“Who says I would've minded that?”

Helena laughed, breathless and loud and exhilarated, a sound that Myka had missed but hadn't realised until now. “You're Myka. Or have you forgotten yourself while I was gone?”

_Maybe I have_ , Myka wondered. _Three months is a long time._ Out loud she said nothing.

“Come on,” Helena said, letting go of Myka and using her hip to push away from the wall. “I'm dying for a drink. This is yours, by the way,” and she picked up the bottle of wine she had been holding when Myka walked in. “The Regents wouldn't let me bring anything, the fogies. Where's your bottle opener? Wine glasses? God, gone for a week and nothing's in the right place.”

They froze, Helena's slip of tongue like a spoon striking through the delicate shell of a crème brulee, sending white noise rushing all around Myka's ears. It was only for a second, though, and soon the static cleared; in no time at all Helena foraged through the fridge and whisked up last night's leftover Thai takeaway, and Myka poured the wine, and they were back to normal.

-

The bookshelf had donated most of its contents to the bed but Helena wasn't bothered. “Put them away later,” she complained, grasping Myka's wrist in an attempt to pull her down from where Myka was stacking them neatly on the nearby chair. “What we're going to do next isn't going to keep those books where they are. Look, I'm naked!”

She wasn't really, but they rectified that soon enough.

The sex was amazing, for lack of a better descriptor. It always had been, but for some reason – or maybe their separation made it all the sweeter – it seemed different now to Myka. Helena still didn't miss an inch of Myka's body as she kissed her way back up, and still dragged half the sheets along with her as they settled against each other, but the air felt changed.

“South Dakota does have different particles in its atmosphere,” Helena replied when Myka drowsily wondered her thoughts out loud later. “More bovine methane, less political bullshit.”

Myka was unable to contain her shout of laughter. “You've been saving that one up, haven't you,” she stated, rolling onto her side and propping herself up with an elbow. With her other hand, she stroked Helena's hair, the dark strands still luxurious and silken between her fingers.

“There's a lot of time to think where I am.”

The room fell silent apart from their breathing.  Myka flopped back down onto the mattress, trying to get comfortable, tracing patterns out of the shadows that danced upon the ceiling. Helena's breath was evening out, her chest rising and falling more deeply with each inspiration, and Myka began to think that Helena had fallen asleep while she, Myka, had just been wanting to say, _Hey, do you remember_ _when Pete got bitten by the fish_ , or something mundane like that when what she really wanted to say was, _Will you tell me what it's like_. Then, she heard a long, slow intake of breath from beside her, and felt fingers fumble their way across her hip. Reaching over without looking, Myka grasped Helena's wrist, tracing by memory the faint veins snaking blood under delicate skin before taking her hand, and the words were erased from her mind as they were both lulled into sleep.

 

III.

_Followed her around the world  
_ _When I caught her she said to me:  
_ ‘ _Look at love, it’s nothing but a shadow  
_ _Where you saw a heart -- that was hollow  
_ _Look at you, you’ve been chasing shadows.’_  
– Steel Train, “Behavior”

A light yet persistent touch drew her out of her slumber, like a thread pulled through water.  Helena was lying on her stomach, her left arm draped over Myka’s body, tracing shapes across the small of her back.  Slowly but eventually, the fingers trailed lower and lower, teasing between Myka's legs.  

Myka chuckled, her half-moan muffled by the pillow as she turned her head.  The sun was filtering in, casting red and orange and yellow and white squarely in her eyes as she squinted against the gap in the curtain.  “You are insatiable.”

Shifting onto her back, Myka took in the eyes sparkling with laughter, the jut of Helena’s chin as she grinned smugly down at Myka, challenging her. Suddenly, the mattress shifted and in two moves Myka found herself straddled by Helena, who sat back on her calves, serious in an instant. Reaching for the fine wrought silver chain around Myka's neck, Helena grasped the necklace and stared at it for a long moment. It was Helena's jewellery, retrieved from the Escher vault and was a matching piece to the ring she wore on her right hand. Now, it was Myka's half of their agreement with the Regents.

Theodora Stanton had given her vague explanations about its use but that Myka was to wear it at all times; when Helena was released, it would serve as her tether to the outside world.

“It will help us ensure the integrity of Wells' release,” was what she had said, while Myka pulled her hair to one side, trying to recall the necklace in the artifact manifest. It wasn't anywhere she could remember reading; then again, it seemed that the HG Wells section, time machine and all, had been excluded from that particular tome altogether.

“It's a tracking device,” Myka had surmised. Correctly, judging by the slight pause of Stanton's fingers as she clasped the necklace.

Stanton smiled faintly as she moved around to face Myka. “You know artifacts are never as simple as that, Agent Bering,” she said. For a moment, Myka imagined that she saw sympathy in the Regent's eyes, and then, just as quickly, she had been dismissed. 

“Does it hurt?” Helena asked, drawing Myka out of her reminiscence. Her fingers twitched lightly agains the ruby pendant, as if wary of the connection between skin and stone.

“Only when I think about you,” Myka said. Her smile was small, and a little sad, and she reached up to trail two fingers down the left side of Helena’s jaw.  Helena turned into the touch, mouth curling slightly as she kissed Myka's fingertips.  

“If I'd known,” she murmured against Myka's skin, “I would never have left it behind. Not for it to turn out like this.”

“Why did you?”

Helena raised a shoulder in a shrug. “It was one of my most treasured possessions,” she said. “When I went into the vault all I could think of was how much I had missed, how much I wanted my Christina above all things. The locket was what I was after, while the necklace reminded me of a time before... a time I would rather not remember.” Helena's expression grew rueful. “It appears as though some part of me will always cause pain.”

Myka shook her head and covered Helena's fingers with her own. “Who knows how an object becomes an artifact? Besides,” she added, attempting to sound lighthearted, “It's the only way I really know you're still alive.”

“Oh, Myka, darling Myka,” Helena breathed, leaning forward to kiss Myka hard on the mouth. “Whatever did I do right to deserve you?”

The day was theirs for the moment, and after Myka turned the tables, pinning Helena’s wrists above her head as she ruthlessly made Helena beg for it, they lazed together some more. Myka's eyes fluttered shut on their own accord; her thoughts, not nearly as asleep, launched a missile around her brain, riding the uncontrolled trajectory into her hippocampus, and she remembered the overwhelming guilt at the time, and anguish and sorrow and a dozen other descriptors for despair, and finally the anger that later fought its way to the surface after every other emotion exhausted itself.  

Suddenly, every thought she had since she was literally sent flying upside down in London coalesced into a single demand that settled hard in her chest, resting like the stone over her breast. It forced itself an audience as Helena’s fingers plotted out some indecipherable journey over Myka’s hips, the curve and slope of her left buttock.  She wanted to know, had to understand.  “Helena—” she began, searching for the words that would give her peace, yet––

_why did you do this? To me? To us?_

and before she could catch herself, her mouth ran away from her brain in the somnolence of coitus and Helena's body tensed, taut like the string on an archer's bow.

“Would you believe me if I said I did it for you?”  The tone was soft, like feathers. The words were weighted, like lead. The silence was poised, like a delicate scale prepared to go either way.

Myka held herself still. Did she believe it?  If believing was the way she felt now, like her head was held underwater and she was unable to fight, unable to even summon the will to do so, then she believed it with every fibre of her being. Her blood thickened in her veins and she grew sluggish, confused. If her heart could have leapt out of her chest to present itself to Helena's hands, Myka knew it would have done so in an instant; for now, however, it was lodged in her throat, furious in its desperation. She shook her head and tried to clear out the sensation that someone had just thrown sand in her face.

Too late, when she desperately flung her arm out to stop Helena, all she caught was the rapidly cooling dip in the mattress, and the quiet click of the door as it shut.  

 

IV.

_This can't be living, now,  
_ _If so, then show me how._  
– Portugal the Man, “Got It All (This Can't Be Living Now)”

When Myka helped Helena back indoors, when the crushing pain of the headaches had subsided and the polished ruby necklace stopped burning as hot as magnesium, Helena clung to Myka and whispered, “I'm sorry,” against Myka's cheek, ghosting kisses just below her ear and down her jaw. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she repeated over and over like a prayer, as though another separation would rip a physical wound in her.

All Myka could do was hold on to Helena too, rubbing her back in slow, comforting circles. Her throat was dry and her throat worked at the words she wanted to say – but what was there to say? She had wanted Helena, more than she wanted the Warehouse. This was the spot she had picked; this was where she stood with the Regents.

“Tell me what it's like,” she heard herself ask. Her voice came out small, faint, and a little far away, and Myka found she was afraid to know the answer to her question.

Helena was silent for a while, and Myka concentrated on the sound of their breathing. Finally, after a particularly deep breath, Helena said, “Imagine the darkest room you've ever been in, and it is darker than that. Think about the smallest space, and it is smaller than that. It stifles you, as if you were being smothered, except you don't need to breathe at all.

“All you want to do is scream, but you can't; your thoughts scream for you – at you – you have nothing but your thoughts, and none of your senses, but all you wish is that you would lose them so you'd never have to think again.”

They fell silent again, then, and Myka remembered watching Macpherson on his way to the bronzer; in her mind's eye she recalled his smirk, to eventually be frozen in metal forever, while against her chest Helena's reassuring weight was tense against her, and Myka felt as though she needed to throw up and take the biggest breath all at the same time.

A sudden need raced through her like fire fueled by pure oxygen, explosive and hungry. Tilting her head, she claimed Helena's lips, the moan escaping from between their bodies pulling something low in her belly. She fumbled at Helena's shirt and jeans, fingers catching in the band of Helena's underwear in her haste. Her legs parted as her hips pressed persistently against Helena's thigh, almost dizzy with relief when the pressure soothed the ache that had sparked so wantonly, so quickly, within her.

Helena met Myka's speed, discarding each article of Myka's clothing with the deftness of practised fingers. They ended up on the sofa, fumbling and rough with each other, and when they had relentlessly drawn each other to orgasm countless times more, they dozed fitfully, Myka tucked up between the back of the couch and Helena's back against her chest.

“I think you should move back into the B&B,” Helena said later, only half-jokingly, as her fingers danced upon and stroked Myka's wrist. “There'll be far more places I can run around to before my head implodes.”

“It's not the same any more.” The response was brusque and short, and Myka avoided Helena's gaze. 

“And yet you still run about snagging and bagging and tagging.” Helena waved her hands nonchalantly. “What's changed about that?”

“It's the only way,” Myka said, disentangling herself from Helena's body, standing up and running a hand through her hair. Her fingers caught on a knot and she winced as her motion, too fast to be delicate, ripped through it. “They won't let you come here otherwise.”

“And if I weren't to come back?” Helena challenged. “If this were the last time the Regents let me out of my prison. Would you leave the Warehouse then, Myka?” 

Myka whirled around, eyes wild. In her nakedness, Helena found her a sight to behold. “I did this for you, Helena. All of it. Staying in South Dakota, with the Warehouse, living this life all so I can wait for the day where maybe, _maybe_ I'll come home one day and you'll be waiting for me.” She stopped, breathless, where she retrieved her blouse from the floor and tugged it over her body, refusing to meet Helena's gaze. 

“You didn't answer my question,” Helena said, reaching out and gently pulling on Myka's elbow. Allowing herself to be steered back onto the sofa, Myka sank down onto the yielding cushion and stared at a stray stitch on the cream leather. “Pete, Claudia, Artie, Leena; they're your family, Myka.” Helena tucked a strand of hair behind Myka's ear, stroked the dark curls beneath her fingers. “We had fun together. We made a good team. But don't live your life for someone you never see. Live it with those who can share it with you.”

Myka leaned into Helena's caress, silent, contemplating. “How long do we have?” she asked finally, holding her breath as the words pulled themselves out her mouth, as if the slowness of their escape would delay the outcome. She could leave for a moment to go to the bathroom, to get a glass of water, to _blink_ , and their time could be up. The Regents never said, and Helena never told until it was too late.

“Long enough,” Helena said, and buried her face in Myka's neck. She breathed in, held it for a moment as if to bottle Myka's scent, as if to keep it deep in her lungs with her in her bronchioles and millions of tiny alveoli. “Wherever they put me,” she murmured, and Myka shifted and sighed. “Wherever you'll be.”

 


End file.
